The History of Love

“If we do talk, we never speak in Yiddish. The words of our childhood became strangers to us—we couldn’t use them in the same way and so we chose not to use them at all. Life demanded a new language.”

Leo describes conversations with his friend Bruno. Most of the time, the two sit together in companionable silence; however, when they do speak to one another, they use English. Yiddish holds too much of their old life and is no longer appropriate for what they want to express. In keeping with Leo’s obsession with finding the right words, he has abandoned one language completely.

“I did it for myself alone, not for anyone else, and that was the difference. It didn’t matter if I found the words, and more than that, I knew it would be impossible to find the right ones. And because I accepted that what I’d once believed was possible was in fact impossible, and because I knew I would never show a word of it to anyone, I wrote a sentence: Once upon a time there was a boy.”

When Leo sits down to write for the first time in 57 years, his intention has changed drastically. Rather than his desire to impress Alma and his naive intention to find the right words, Leo is writing just for himself. He knows he won’t find the right words, but he also understands that there is still meaning in the exercise. His writing gives his life structure and purpose.

“When will you learn that there isn’t a word for everything?”

After Alma leaves for the United States, Leo sends her letters and a few passages from The History of Love. In his youthful enthusiasm, he believes that a word exists for everything he could hope to describe. This response from Alma, which may or may not be a figment of Leo’s imagination, speaks to the pessimism that Leo develops after his experiences in the war and his conviction that finding the right words is impossible.